


rats' feet over broken glass

by chronicAngel



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Cutting, Gen, POV Third Person, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-23 21:55:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18157523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: "I was, you know..." She mumbles after a long time. The silence has gotten tiresome. He pulls away to look her in the face, and it's painful to meet his eyes even as they are barely visible behind his stupid anime sunglasses. "Trying to kill myself."





	rats' feet over broken glass

GT: So wait.  
GT: Have you and roxy never met in person before?  
TT: Yeah, basically.  
TT: Well okay.  
TT: I guess there was one time.  
TT: But we don't really talk about it.

* * *

TG: ok i kno its late.  
TG: im sory.  
TG: m just  
TG: im rly sacred right now  
TG: scared*  
TG: nevrmind.  
TG: this ws dumb  
TT: Roxy?  
TT: Hey, are you okay?  
TT: I can't remember you messaging me just 'cause you were scared about something since we were like, little kids.  
TT: ...You there?  
TT: Shit.

She sniffs as she hears the pings for his messages from her phone across the room, but she can't quite reach it from where she sits in the bathtub so she just lets her arm fall limply against the side of the tub. She'd practically thrown it when he hadn't answered immediately like the child she is. Was. Whatever. Tenses are complicated right now.

She stares at the half-empty bottle she has been drinking from for the last couple of hours and not for the first time considers just breaking it over the lip of the bathtub and digging the glass into her arm. It would be so easy to just break the skin, pierce into the veins, keep slicing away at it until it was all gone. It would all be _over_. She clenches her hands into fists until she's white-knuckled.

She takes a deep breath and picks up the bottle, taking another long swig and hoping it will drown the pain. Hoping it can do anything to make her just _stop hurting._

The burning in her gut does nothing to subtract from or add to the emptiness deep within her soul. She sometimes wonders if she can drink enough to fill herself to the brim. Every day becomes a personal challenge. Drink more than the day before. Fill yourself until you overflow. She supposes that in a way, she is overflowing now. It doesn't make her feel, though. When she pulls the bottle from her lips, she glares at the label, the actual brand too blurry to read thanks to the double whammy of tears and drunkenness. In disgust, she wipes at her eyes and sniffs again.

Her phone isn't going off anymore. She supposes that means Dirk has stopped worrying about her. This happens often. One moment he'll be freaking out like he's her panicked 15-year-old dad despite the fact that she is also fifteen and perhaps just a little bit in love with him and the next he'll get too distracted with messaging Jake or tweaking one of his robots or paying attention to literally anything that isn't her. Which is... fine. It's fine. It's not like she needs his help anyway. It's not like he would be able to help with any of her problems because they're all _her_ problems and she's handling them _just fine_ by herself.

She drinks again just to make the thoughts go away. It rarely works. It certainly doesn't this time, and by the time she hits the bottom of the bottle she's still lost in her own head and staring between the bottle and the lip of the tub wondering if that would finally make it _stop._

She wonders if maybe she could stop being such an unlovable, self-pitying, depressed, alcoholic sack of maggot-infested _shit_ if she just slit her wrists with broken glass and let herself fall asleep in her bathtub to never wake up again. She supposes there wouldn't be a person left to pity. A person left to be depressed. A person left to drink. All of the things she hates about herself would be remedied so easily. Only...

Only she thinks of Dirk stranded in this world all by himself, and she thinks of him having to explain to Jane and Jake why she just dropped off the face of the Earth, and she wonders if he would even tell them the truth and-- And that last part stings. More than anything else. It reminds her all over again of how alone she is. Of how alone she will always be. After all, she's never seen another human being in person. Her best friend who she is maybe in love with is the only other human being who is even still alive.

She grips the bottle so tight that it actually cracks in her hand, leaving the smallest cuts on the skin of her palm, the small amount of alcohol that was left in it spilling out and making the little scrapes _burn._ And then the bottle is empty, and she's sitting there, watching droplets of blood bead up on her skin and wondering why she doesn't just finish the job. It's not so bad. It's not so scary. It'd be so easy now, especially now that it's already cracked, to just...

To just die.

She hesitates for only a moment before she finally takes the bottle and smashes it against the side of the tub, the sound of shattering glass ringing in her ears for a long moment, a hollow echo of the abstract thought of what she is about to do. The pieces of glass that are scattered across the floor are too small to actually use, and so she can only take what is left of the bottle, with its sharp, jagged edges, and stare at it for a long time, questioning herself. Always questioning. Is this how she wants to secure her fate? To write her own ending, make it a tragedy?

She squeezes her eyes shut and actually screams when the glass pierces her skin, sharp and agonizing and _something_ , anything at all. She just holds it like that for a minute, bottle that's just as big around as her arm comically piercing into it. When she manages to dig her teeth into her lip so hard she can taste blood on her tongue and reduce her cries of pain to whimpers and hisses through her teeth, she drags the glass across her skin.

The pain that blooms is not too different from when it initially pierced her skin, yet it is somehow... bigger. It is more of the same but it is something different at the same time, something she has never felt before, something wholly unique. It hardly takes any time at all for the blood to well up and drip down her wrist into the water of the bath, and she watches deep red mingle with perfectly clear water. It occurs to her that this is going to stain her shirt, though it was already ruined when she wore it into the water.

It is not long before she feels too weak to hold her arm up any longer, and she lets it fall into the water, watching the red continue to spread until she is simply sitting in a bath of her own blood. A distant part at the back of her mind (although it feels like every part of her mind is distant, now) laughs at the description. _Bloodbath._

Her head lolls to the side against the wall and she can only think of how tired she suddenly is for a moment before her whole body seems to sag, and then she is left in an absent state, drifting between consciousness and unconsciousness. She is not properly asleep, really, but she is certain she is not awake, either. She wonders if this is what it feels like to die. To be dying.

She does not know how long it is before she wakes up again. When she sees Dirk's face, something she has seen a thousand times in dreams, she wonders if this is heaven. If her afterlife can be spending eternity with him. False promises have never felt so sweet.

"Thank god," he breathes, and she can't see through his shades but she can see how red the rest of his face is and the snot coming out of his nose and the tears rolling down his cheeks and it only takes that much for her to realize that he was ugly crying. She doesn't realize he's not wearing a shirt until he's pulling her in close for a hug, squeezing her tight in his arms.

"'m gonna get... blood on ya..." She mumbles, and then feels the fabric tied tightly around her wrist. When she looks down, she sees his shirt, stained and soaked almost completely through with blood. She does not have the strength to lift her arms and hug him back, and so she can only weakly lean into his embrace and let her eyes fall closed and silently pray that her permanent sleep can still come while she's here in his arms.

He breathes into her hair, one arm still wrapped tightly around her back and his hand holding her face close to his bare chest so she's forced to feel how warm his skin is and smell his shitty body spray which she maybe kind of likes a little bit, actually. "You scared the shit out of me... I thought I lost you..."

"I thought you lost me too," she jokes half-heartedly.

He pulls away to stare her in the face, and she meets his eyes as best she can when she can hardly keep her eyes open and he's still wearing those stupid shades. Sometimes you wish he had never discovered anime, even if they do admittedly frame his face rather nicely and highlight his high cheekbones and _whatever, it's not like you're checking him out._ "What the hell were you thinking?" He spits, voice angry, and she opens her mouth to answer him but he cuts her off before she can. "It was a rhetorical question, you idiot. Were you trying to kill yourself?" She can't bring herself to point out that actually, yes, that's exactly what she was trying to do.

He seems to read it from her face anyway, because his eyebrows furrow so they're mostly hidden behind his shades and then he pulls her in for another hug, squeezing her tighter this time and not letting go until she manages to wriggle out of his grip. "How'd you even..." She scrubs furiously at her eyes, though she's still too weak and it doesn't do much for her, honestly. She just hates the feeling of her own tears on her face. She hates feeling weak for showing emotion even when she's all alone, but _especially_ when she's with him. "How are you even here? There's an entire ocean between us."

"Flying robot." He says, so casually it's almost like he wants you to believe that that's not incredible. "Thing's toast now, though. No idea how I'm gettin' home from here." She wants to mumble that they'll figure something out, find some sort of boat or something, but her energy comes and goes like waves lapping at the shore and she wants to just dive into the ocean, even if that means she may drown. She supposes Dirk will find a way to pull her out, though. There is a whole ocean between them, after all, so by this point he must be an expert.

She continues to just lay against him for what feels like it must be hours. He makes no move to push her away. On the contrary, he rubs his hand up and down her back, his mouth pressed against her forehead in some sort of half-kiss... thing. It's nice, though.

"I was, you know..." She mumbles after a long time. The silence has gotten tiresome. He pulls away to look her in the face, and it's painful to meet his eyes even as they are barely visible behind his stupid anime sunglasses. "Trying to kill myself." He winces. She does afterward, more upset by the fact that she's visibly hurt him than the idea that she's hurt herself. After all, why should she matter?

"God, Roxy..." He presses forward, and for a moment her heart stutters because she thinks he is going to kiss her. He doesn't. He simply rests his forehead against her, squeezing his eyes shut behind his shades in agony even as she stares at him with wide, terrified eyes. "I can't stand the thought of living alone on this planet... Of living without you." She bites her lip, tears welling up at the corners of her eyes once more. _Damn it, Dirk..._

* * *

GT: Well what happened?  
GT: Hoho, it wasnt some sort of awkward makeout session or something was it?  
TT: No.  
TT: No, it was nothing like that.


End file.
